Using Direct Instruction as a teaching strategy
Teaching = process of guiding learners as they work with information.
Four key aspects of instruction that promote academic achievement:
organising and explaining material in ways that are appropriate to students’ abilities
Creating an environment that fosters learning
Helping students become autonomous learners
Reflecting critically
(Davis, 1993)
Important features of Direction Instruction
The terms direct instruction or explicit instruction usually refer to whole-class expository teaching techniques. Simple forms of direct instruction include lectures and demonstrations. They are teacher-centred approaches in which the teacher delivers academic content in a highly structured format that direct the activities of learners and maintain a focus on academic achievement.
When used effectively, direct instruction has the following important features:
The learning outcomes and success criteria are made clear to students
The teacher controls the time for various instructional activities
The teacher organises and controls the sequencing of lesson activities
There is an emphasis on academic achievement
The teacher carefully monitors students’ activities and learning
The teacher provides frequent clear feedback to students.
Are criticised as when they are implemented poorly they can be very boring, however when implemented well, direct instruction remains one of the most effective ways of promoting student learnings.
Some teachers use direct instruction because it gives them maximum control over what, when and how students learn – which is intuitively attractive to many teachers. Others use it because it has strong research support.
Sometimes it is the most appropriate strategy to use, such as when students are being introduced to a new area of study it is useful to develop their basic knowledge and skills through direct instruction before giving them a more active role in knowledge-seeking through strategies such as problem solving or experimentation. Sometimes it is better for teachers to explain and demonstrate things directly rather than leaving learners to discover knowledge for themselves. This does not mean that direct instruction excludes the use of constructivist approaches to teaching . It emphasises that students need careful guidance in order to construct meaning from their learning experiences.
Direct instruction is a tool that should be used when it is the best approach given a situation and must be used thoughtful and skilfully if it is to help students learn.
In direct instruction, the emphasis is on the ‘teaching in small steps, providing for student practice after teach step, guiding students during initial practice and providing all students with a high level of successful practice’ (Rosenshine, 1987:34). Each of these steps requires considerable skill.
Some advantages of direct instruction
In a comprehensive review of research linking teacher behaviour to student achievement, Brophy and Good (1986) emphasise the following points:
In general, academic learning is influenced by the amount of time that students spend engaged in appropriate academic activities
Learning is easier for students when their teachers carefully structure new information
Teachers should help students to relate new information to what they already know
Teachers should monitor learner performance and provide corrective feedback.
The most effective guidance that teachers can provide is ‘guidance specifically designed to support the cognitive processing necessary for learning’. (Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (2006:76)
Direct instruction can be used to help students achieve many types of learning outcomes particularly those that are based on knowledge, attitudes and values. Direct instruction can also be used to demonstrate skills to students, but skill development requires practice by the learners.
Some advantages:
Efficient way to introduce students to a new area of study – gives broad overview with key concepts and shows how they are interrelated. Thus gives students the foundational knowledge for later learning. Particularly useful if important information is not otherwise readily available to students
Very effective way of teaching factual information that is highly structured
Reduces the cognitive load on students’ working memory (compared with discovery approaches)
You can convey a personal interest in the subject (through an enthusiastic presentation) which can stimulate interest and enthusiasm of the students.
Allows you to provide a role model of a scholar in a particular field. Can show how problems can be approached, how information can be analysed or how knowledge in your specialist field is generated and structured.
Highlight important points or possible difficulties for students so their exposure to these things is not left to chance.
Equally effective with large and small classes and with students from most cultures
One of the most effective approaches for teaching explicit concepts and skills to low-achieving students
Lectures can be a useful way to provide information for students who are poor readers or who are not very skilled at locating, organising and interpreting information
Effective way of demonstrating to students that there are alternative perspectives on issues
Can provide opportunities to challenge students to consider apparent disjunctions between theory (what they predict should happen) and observation (what they actually see). First step towards helping students to overcome misconceptions or misunderstandings.
Demonstrations allow students to concentrate on the results of some event, rather than the technicalities of achieving the result. Important when students lack the confidence or skills to perform the task well.
Lends itself well to teacher reflection so you can evaluate your presentations and refine them.
Many students learn more deeply from strongly guided learning than from discovery.
Generally, direct instruction allows you to create a non-threatening (reasonably stress-free) learning environment for students. Those who are shy, not confident or not knowledgeable are not forced to participate and become embarrassed.
Some limitations of direct instruction
Direct instruction is not always the most effective way to help students to learn:
Because of the teacher’s central role, success of this strategy depends heavily on the image that the teacher projects. If the teacher does not appear to be well prepared, knowledgeable, confident, enthusiastic and well organised, the students will become bored or distracted and their learning will be hindered.
Direct instruction relies heavily on students being able to assimilate information through listening, observing and note taking. Students who are not very good at these skills will find it difficult to learn from direct instruction.
When the material to be learned is very complex, direct instruction (particularly in the form of a lecture) may not provide students with sufficient opportunities to process and understand the information being presented.
Difficult to cater for the individual differences between students’ abilities, prior knowledge, interest in the subject, rates of learning, levels of understanding or learning styles during direct instruction, particularly in large classes.
Because students have limited active involvement in direct instruction, there are few opportunities for them to develop their social and interpersonal (esp communication) skills.
There is some research evidence that the high level of structure and teacher control that is characteristic of direct instruction may have a negative impact on students’ problem solving abilities, independence and curiosity
Direct instruction presents learners with the teacher’s view of how the content is (or can be) organised and synthesised. This will not always be a view that students can easily understand or one with which they agree, and they may have limited opportunities to explore or debate these issues.
If the direct instruction does not involve some student participation (such as asking and answering questions), their interest will be lost after 10-15 minutes, and they will remember little of the content.
If used too frequently, direct instruction can lead students to believe that it is the teacher’s job to tell them all they need to know – they may not be encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning.
Because direct instruction (particularly in lectures and demonstrations) involves a lot of one-way communication – limited opportunities to gain feedback about student understanding. Teacher may not be aware of student misconceptions.
Demonstrations rely heavily on students’ observation skills and many students are not skilful observers. Hence they may not see what you want them to see in a demonstration.
Some things, such as psychomotor skills, cannot be taught through direction instruction alone.
Use direct instruction if:
Do not use direct instruction if:
Learners have limited prior knowledge of the topic
The concepts and relationships you want students to understand are very complex and difficult to identify
You want learners to focus on learning rather than on the procedure of learning.
You want to introduce learners to a broad range of ideas and examples in a short time
Learners lack the skills to learn independently or collaboratively.
Learners are highly motivated to work independently or collaboratively.
The content to be learned requires a lot of time to assimilate
There are extreme variations in learners’ prior knowledge and/or abilities
You want learners to develop their social skills while learning academic content.
The content requires individual interpretation and adaptation.
Learners are highly motivated to work independently or collaboratively.
The content to be learned requires a lot of time to assimilate
There are extreme variations in learners’ prior knowledge and/or abilities
You want learners to develop their social skills while learning academic content.
The content requires individual interpretation and adaptation.
What does research tell us about direct instruction? Some key aspects of effective direct instruction
There are several aspects of direct instruction that consistently receive research support as important contributors to student learning. Teacher Clarity
A clear teacher is one who presents information in ways that make it easy for students to understand. Two distinct approaches. First approach describes clarity in terms of things that teachers do to bring about learner understanding. Often referred to as cognitive clarity. To be cognitively clear, you need to:
Tell students what you want them to learn or be able to do
Present the lesson content in a logical sequence
Present the lesson content at a suitable pace
Give explanations that make sense to students
Emphasise important points
Use appropriate examples to support your explanations
Ask questions to check students’ understanding
Re-explain things if students get confused
Explain the meanings of new words
Give students time to think about new information
Answer students’ questions satisfactorily
Give an adequate summary of the main points of the lesson.
The second research approach describes clarity in terms of things that teachers say and how they say them – verbal clarity or vagueness. Clear and unambiguous speech (verbal clarity) is an essential part of the teacher behaviours referred to as ‘cognitive clarity’. If you are to give students a clear explanation of something you need to use language and speech patterns that will not confuse them – particularly important when the language of instruction is not the students’ first language.
If you want to teach clearly, it is important to do the following:
Plan your instruction well in advance
Make sure that you have a deep understanding of whatever you want the students to understand
Prepare a written plan for every lesson
Make sure that students understand what outcomes they are supposed to be achieving and what criteria you will use to assess their learning
Write carefully worded key questions in your lesson plans and use them to guide students’ thinking
Make sure that you have clear definitions and 4explanations for all key concepts in your lesson plan
Include appropriate examples in your lesson plans
Be conscious of your vocabulary – define all new jargon and don’t use vague expressions
Make deliberate connections between lessons and between key points within each lesson
Reflect on every lesson.
For teachers to improve clarity – identify the practices that are making them unclear and change them. Get feedback from students to assist this. Instruction Variety
The main reason for deliberately varying your approaches to teaching is that not all students learn the same thing in the same way (Spady, 1994). Second reason is that we all get bored if we are doing the same thing for too long, particularly if we are inactive. Therefore vary the following aspects of direct instruction:
The way you commence your lessons (ie stating the outcomes, asking a question, posing a problem, showing an object to arouse curiosity).
The way you check students’ prior knowledge (ie pre-tests, brainstorming, surveys)
The way you give students access to information (ie lecture, handout, PowerPoint presentation, Internet, stories, television).
The way you emphasise main ideas
The way you ask questions and the type of questions you ask
The types of feedback and reinforcement that you give learners
The type of examples you use to illustrate points
The type of thinking you expect form students
The challenges that you present to students
The activities in which learners are engaged (eg listening, reading, writing, speaking)
The types of instructional materials you use.
Each student will have different expectations about what will or should happen in your classes. You will also have certain expectations about how students should respond to the way you teach. It is likely that your preferred teaching style mirrors your own preferred learning style. If some students are constantly required to work outside their preferred learning style they will quickly lose motivation. You need to be aware of this and try to find ways of aligning your expectations with those of the students – ie using a variety of teaching techniques.
If you use appropriate variety in your teaching, this can expand students’ view of what they are learning and how they can learn, challenging them to think in new ways. Task Orientation
Both the teacher and the learners should have a clear focus on the outcomes that students are trying to achieve. Students’ task should be to achieve these outcomes to a high standard in a reasonable amount of time. Teacher’s task is to assist learners to systematically work towards achieving the outcomes. For direct instruction, there must be a well-organised and structured learning environment in which the teacher is concerned with:
Helping students to achieve specific learning outcomes to clearly stated standards
Providing students with the opportunity to learn by presenting relevant information
Asking questions to prompt student thinking and check their understanding
Encouraging students to think independently
Reminding students of what they are trying to achieve
Encouraging and rewarding students’ efforts
Successful task orientation starts with effective classroom management – learning environment must be organised and managed so it is easy for all students to focus on learning. Ensure that interactions between you and the students are focused on intellectual content and achievement of predefined goals – not simply control. Easier to monitor the activities of students and encourage them to be constructively occupied and working towards planned outcomes when basic organisational structure is established. Task orientation is a key feature of direct instruction because it places an emphasis on clear goal setting, active teaching, close monitoring of student process and teacher responsibility for student learning – all important for student achievement. Task orientation is essential for the engagement, student self-regulation, higher-order thinking and deep understanding element s of Quality Teaching. Engagement in Learning
To be engaged, students must be actively thinking about, working with, or using the ideas and information that the teacher has presented – they must be trying to understand. Academic learning is influenced by the amount of time students spend engaged in appropriate academic tasks. Engagement and concentration and persistence have a strong influence on student learning.
One way to maximise student engagement is to have a system of class rules that allows students to attend to personal and procedural matters without the need to seek the teacher’s permission, thus encouraging students to remain engaged in learning for the maximum possible time. It is important to monitor the seatwork of students who are working independently, and to communicate to then that you are aware of their progress.
Your basic task is to engage students in learning activities that challenge them to construct understanding. This can be achieved through problem solving, through encouraging students to make choices and take the initiative in their learning, by challenging students to search for underlying causes, explain their thinking and justify a position band by making all learning relevant. Simple basic rule: if you want students to engage in learning, you must tell them what you expect them to do and you must make it easy and interesting for them to do it.
When students know what the goals are, and when they see these goals as attainable and useful, they will want to engage in learning. If the students do not know what they are supposed to be learning, or why it is important, or they see the goals as unattainable or unimportant, you cannot expect them to be enthusiastic or engaged. Learner Success
When students engage in learning tasks, they may experience high success (understand the content and make only occasional careless errors), moderate success (partially understand the content and make some substantive errors) or low success (not understand the task at all). Several studies have shown that instructional techniques that allow students to experience moderate-to-high success rates in class activities produce greater levels of student achievement in later tests than instruction that results in low student success rates on class activities.
When students believe that they can learn (because of earlier learning successes) it allows teachers to challenge them with higher-level tasks – one of the key indicators of effective teaching.
Moderate-to-high success rates on learning tasks provide opportunities for students to apply their learned knowledge in other classroom activities such as answering questions and problem solving. Thus success encourages further engagement in learning. It is difficult for students to be successful if the criteria for success are not explicit.
If students understand why they were successful in learning, they will be more likely to be successful in the future, even if they choose to use a different approach to learning.
Behaviours that support the key aspects of effective teaching
The above summary suggests that to be an effective teacher you need the knowledge and skill to present information clearly, using a variety of strategies that encourage learners to remain task-oriented and to engage the students in learning processes in which they can experience reasonably high levels of success. Thus effective teaching is the result of patterns of teacher behaviours rather than isolated behaviours and that the aspects of effective teaching briefly described above do not provide a total picture of teacher effectiveness. Using students’ ideas
One of the best ways to maintain students’ interest is to involve them actively in the lesson and you can do this during direct instruction by using the students’ ideas as an integral part of your lesson. Students’ ideas can be used in five basic ways:
Acknowledging (repeating students’ main statements)
Modifying (rephrasing a student’s idea in the teacher’s words)
Applying (using the student’s idea to take the next step in solving a problem)
Comparing (showing similarities and differences in the ideas of several students)
Summarising (using what was said by students to revise key points)
The most important reason for using students’ ideas is that it enables you to build explicitly on the students’ prior knowledge. The process of soliciting ideas form students can give you insight into the attitudes, understandings and misconceptions that they bring to the learning episode – vital information that you need to help them learn. Structuring
Good lesson structuring starts with a well-planned introduction – something that will grab the learners’ attention and spark their curiosity. Four of the common ways of doing this are:
Start the lesson with a question (prompts learners to think about a particular issue)
Provide a brief overview of where the lesson will take learners (to hlpe them develop a framework for the lesson)
Use an advance organiser( to create a general context into which more specific information can be integrated).
Simply tell the learners what outcomes they will be achieving in the lesson (so that they have clear goals for their learning)
The most effective introductions show the learners where the lesson will take them and how they will get there. Sometimes called ‘pre-instructional strategies’, chief purpose is to get the students interested in the lesson and to help them focus on the main points of the lesson.
Once the learners know where the lesson will take them, show them how they will get there. Younger children – tell them. Older children – flow chart or points list. Can refer to it to show progression and see how main points are related.
At appropriate points in the lesson you should summarise important information.
The structure of your lesson must make sense to your students. You will make learning easier for your students if you highlight main points, proceed in small steps at an appropriate pace and give opportunities to check students understand what you are talking about.
Six instructional activities that Rosenshine and Stevens (1986) claim to be essential to well-structured teaching:
Regular reviews of past learning
Well-organised presentation of each lesson
Guided practice for students on new tasks
Feedback to students on their learning
Independent practice for students once basics have been mastered and
systematic weekly review of course content.
All of these teacher activities place clear focus on what we want students to learn – and that is one of the basic principles of outcomes-based education.
Without appropriate structuring, effective teaching is difficult because it is hard for the teacher to remain task-oriented and because students are unlikely to be appropriately engaged in learning. Careful structuring of each lesson is essential if you want students to engage in higher-order thinking and if you want to deliberately guide them to deep levels of understanding Questioning
Questioning is still regarded as an important part of teaching because (a) it stimulates student thinking and learning and (b) it provides the teacher with valuable information about student learning.
Teachers could use questions for the following purposes, all of which are relevant to direct instruction:
to develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved
To evaluate students’ preparation and check on homework or seatwork.
To develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes
To review and summarise previous lessons
To nurture insights by exposing new relationships
To assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives
To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own.
Questioning forms an integral part of most strategies for effective teaching. It is an important component of teacher clarity because it is a means by which teachers can gain feedback on learner understanding. Also keeps students on task and encourages engagement in meaningful learning. Can introduce variety into lessons and is a means of enabling even slow learners to experience some success in their learning. Questioning has little effect on student learning unless it requires students to use ideas rather than just remember them.
With regards to Bloom’s taxonomy and questions stimulating learners to think at the higher levels, Cotton (1988) cautions that:
Higher-order questions are not categorically better than lower-order questions in eliciting higher-level responses or in promoting learning gains
Lower cognitive questions are more effective than higher-level questions with young (primary level) children, particularly the disadvantaged
In most classes above the primary grades, a combination of higher and lower cognitive questions is superior to exclusive use of one or the other
Lower cognitive questions are more effective when the teacher’s purpose is to impart factual knowledge and assist students to commit this knowledge to memory
I settings where a high incidence of lower-level questions is appropriate, greater frequency of questions is positively related to student achievement
Increasing the use of higher cognitive questions (to considerably above the 20 per cent incidence noted in most classes) produces superior learning gains for secondary students.
For older students, increases in te use of higher cognitive questions (to 50% or more) are positively related to increases in:
On task behaviour
Length of student responses
The number of relevant contributions volunteered by students
The number of student-to-student interactions
Student use of complete sentences
Speculative thinking on the part of students
Relevant questions posed by students
Your questions must always be pitched at a level that is appropriate for the students and the content. Probing
Probing is generally regarded as one aspect of questioning. It is the process of seeking clarification or more information when a learner attempts to answer a question. The main reason for probing is to enable you to get a clearer picture of students’ understanding because this may not be obvious form their answers to your initial question. You do not have to restrict your probing to the learner who first answered your question. Sometimes it is useful to seek clarification or elaboration from another learner – called ‘redirection’.
There is some doubt about the extent to which proving helps students to learn. Has the greatest effect on student achievement when it is part of a cycle of attempting to clarify an answer, asking for additional information and redirecting the question to another student. Success is ikely to be greatest when the purpose of the proving is to lead the discussion to higher levels of complexity. Thus proving can be seen as an important catalyst for the effective teaching behaviours of task orientation, student engagement in learning and clarity.
Probing and redirection will be most effective when the students can see why the teacher is using these techniques. Ie teacher seeking more specific information.
Despite the possible benefits of proving, some caution is necessary. It is not appropriate for probing to be ‘guess what’s in the teacher’s head’. Nor if proving leads to students becoming embarrassed because they cannot answer the question. Enthusiasm
An enthusiastic teacher conveys to students a feeling of involvement, excitement and interest through facial expression, gestures, body movements, eye movements and vocal characteristics.
While it seems logical that enthusiastic teachers will motivate their learners more than unenthusiastic teachers, it is difficult to obtain research evidence that teacher enthusiasm makes any direct difference to learner achievement as it is difficult to measure.
Enthusiastic teachers are usually seen by students as better communicators and they are more successful at engaging students in learning. Summary
There is considerable research support for using student ideas, structuring, questioning and probing as important support mechanisms for the teacher behaviours that are more direct indicators of teacher effectiveness. These support behaviours are likely to be particularly helpful when used by an enthusiastic and well-organised teacher.
Planning and implementing direct instruction
Students are not left to explore ideas on their own in order ot learn something – they are guided by the teacher to learn something specific. As a consequence, direct instruction lessons require very careful planning and preparation. Writing lesson outcomes
All planning should start with a clear statement about the outcomes that you want students to achieve, and for each lesson these outcomes should be derived directly from the longer-term syllabus outcomes. Always think of the outcomes in terms of what students will be able to do as a result of your direct instruction.
Be realistic about the lesson outcomes. There is a finite limit to what students can learn in each lesson so the outcomes should be specific enough to be attainable in that lesson. You have to help the students see how the outcomes of each lesson are linked. Selecting lesson content
Think of the content of the lesson as a vehicle to help students achieve the lesson outcomes. The content must be directly related to the outcomes and be at an appropriate cognitive level. Use examples that will make it easy for students to understand the concepts and principles you present to them. Take time to explain the purpose of each example before, or immediately after, you give it. Think carefully about your examples when planning your lessons. Organising the lesson content
One of the main reasons for using direct instruction is that it allows you to organise the lesson content and present it to students in a manner and sequence that will make it easy for them to understand. Therefore, a lot of your planning will involve structuring, organising and sequencing the content so that students are systematically exposed to new ideas and encouraged to think about them in particular ways.
Students assimilate material more easily when they can see a clear structure and logical sequence in it.
General principles of organising lesson content:
Make sure students understand the purpose of each lesson and its general scope.
Try to start by explaining ideas that are relatively easy to understand and progress to the more difficult ideas
Help the students to make connections between what they already know and what you want them to learn, and between the various parts of the new information that you present.
Break the material into meaningful chunks – sections that are small enough to be assimilated easily and then pulled together to make a cohesive whole.
Emphasise the things that are important and help students to see the logical connections between these important ideas.
Use analogies and examples to help the students understand
Give students time to think about what they are learning and encourage them to ask questions
Provide summaries at appropriate points in your lesson.
Whenever possible, use visual means to support your presentation eg picture, cart, diagram or model.
Organise your material in a way that will make sense to your students. Take time to explain to students why you have sequenced the material in a particular way.
Organise your lesson so that it challenges students to think beyond their current level of understanding.
Organise the lesson content in a way that makes it easy to remember. This is a learning theory called schema theory – a schema being an organisational framework for information. Schemata (plural of schema) are the complex knowledge structures that learners develop through experience, which, in turn, become the basis for a student’s prior knowledge in new learning situations.
In schema theory, the knowledge that students build is meaning-driven; it is not simple the accumulation of isolated pieces of information.
Because schemata are important for interpreting and decoding information, it is critical to present students with information in ways that make It easy for them to develop and use schemata. Direct instruction can be a very effective technique for helping students to develop schemata and to activate these reference frameworks as the basis for developing new understanding. Preparing lesson notes
Basic formats: Verbatim Notes
This is a word-by-word script of the content you want to present. It reassures you that you have thought about everything you need to say and how you will say it. Reduces the number of things you need to think about during the lesson presentation and may help overcome nervousness. Problems:
If you simple read notes, presentation appears very formal and uninspiring
You may not use appropriate intonations, pauses etc making presentation sound false
Sentences that read very well do not necessarily sound natural esp those that are long and complex
Easy to lose your place which can make you more nervous
Discourages students from asking questions or making comments
Gives students the impression that you lack confidence and knowledge
Gives students the impression all they need to do is listen and not think.
Outlines Notes
Very useful to prepare a summary of the information on which you will base your presentation, expressed in point form rather than complete sentences. The main advantage of this form of notes is that it forces you to construct sentences on the run so your presentation becomes less formal and appears to be based more soundly on your own knowledge and experience. It also helps to ensure that your delivery (voice) matches your message. You also have more freedom to move about the classroom.
Disadvantages:
If you lack confidence you may become nervous and forget what you wanted to say about each point
If your summary is too brief you may forget to discuss the ways in which the main points are connected or interrelated.
Helping students to master the language of your subject
Each subject or discipline has its own special language to describe the concepts and relationships that are unique to that area of study. You mast help the learners to mast the language of your subject at the same time as they strive to understand its content.
A simple first step is to explain to students that they will be learning some new words during the lesson, and tell them why it is necessary to understand and use these words. Write new terminology on the board so students see the correct spelling. – particularly important for ESL students.
Don’t expect students to understand words just because you use tem frequently or because students use the words, they know what they mean.
You will help students to understand your subject if you take the time to explain why technical terms are necessary, and why particular words are used to describe the concepts you are presenting. Often it will help to tell students the derivation of the term.
Four traps to avoid when you are attempting to explain new terminology to students:
Confusing students by using definition that contains more words they don’t understand
Using the same words in the definition as the concept you are trying to define
Providing a non-definition – a long explanation that never really defines the term
Using words that have an everyday meaning and a meaning specific to the subject, without explaining the special meaning.
Helping students to take notes
Students need some record of what they were learning so they can revise it, follow up on ideas in their own time and prepare for future lessons. Merely copying notes from the board does not necessarily help students to learn.
Don’t assume that your students will have appropriate note taking skills. Make it easy by emphasising main points, making the structure of your lesson clear and by giving them time to record notes. Checking learner understanding
It is extremely important that you know whether or not students are learning. Can be done informally from the looks on their faces, the questions they ask and the answers they give to your questions. Can also be done by giving a short test during or after the lesson. Explain that the tests are designed to help them learn, not just test what they have learned.
Bringing it all together
Basic Structure An introduction/overview in which you:
Help students to review what they have already learned to prepare them for the current lesson.
Tell students what they will learn in the current lesson and why the will be learning it
Tell students how their learning will be applied and assessed.
A presentation/learning phase in which you:
Give students clear explanations of the things you want them to learn
Provide opportunities for students to think about and apply the things they are learning
Give students opportunities for guided practice
Monitor students’ learning and gain feedback on their understanding
Encourage students to self-evaluate their learning and ask questions to improve their understanding
Provide feedback and encouragement to students
A structured conclusion in which you:
Make a formative evaluation of what students learned in the lesson
Briefly explain what will happen in the next stage of students’ learning
Give students learning tasks to be completed before the next lesson.
Keep the following points in mind:
Always communicate clearly and avoid using unnecessary or repetitive words such as ‘OK’, ‘right’ and ‘you know’.
Vary your speech rate, volume and pitch to match the message you are delivering and to help maintain students’ interest
Don’t go too fast. Students need time to think; even good note takers cannot write at more than about 20% of the rate at which you can speak.
Always direct your presentation at the students, not at the board, the overhead screen or the floor.
Don’t try to be a comedian
Make eye contact with as many students as possible
Use appropriate gestures and physical movements, but do not wander aimlessly around the room.
Avoid distracting mannerisms, such as scratching your head or pulling your ear.
Try to minimise the barriers between you and the students.
Determining whether your direct instruction was effective
Gather as much evidence as possible in order to decide whether you should be satisfied with the results of your instruction and to decide what changes you will make next time you teach that class or use that teaching strategy.
When you use direct instruction as your main teaching strategy, you should ask questions such as the following:
Thinking about what you did:
Did I tell the students what I expected them to learn and how they would be able to use their new knowledge?
Did I tell students the criteria I would use to judge the quality of their learning?
What did I do to help the students relate their new knowledge to things that they already understood?
Did I do everything in this lesson that I had planned to do? If not, why not?
Did anything (positive or negative) happen in this lesson that I had not expected?
Did I use any terminology that the students did not understand? How can I be sure that they understood all the words I assumed they understood?
How much time did I spend talking and how much time did students spend thinking?
Did my organisation and sequencing of the content work effectively to help students learn?
What opportunities did I give the students to ask questions?
How often did I check to see that the students understood the lesson content?
Was I confident and enthusiastic in my presentation?
What did I do to help students see the relevance of the lesson?
What happened in this lesson to confirm or contradict my beliefs about teaching and learning?
What things would I change if I had to teach this lesson again tomorrow?
Thinking about the students:
What evidence do I have that the students achieved the outcomes?
Did all students achieve these outcomes, or only some students? Why?
Did the students react to the lesson in the way that I anticipated that they would?
Did the lesson contain an appropriate amount of information and was that information organised in a sequence that seemed logical to the students?
Were the students engaging with important ideas and trying to develop deep understanding?
What evidence do I have that the students enjoyed this lesson?
At the end of the lesson, were students curious and enthusiastic about learning more?
In what ways did this lesson influence the beliefs and values of my students? How can I justify this outcome?
Was direct instruction the best choice for this lesson, or would students have learned more if I had used a different strategy?
Whatever happens in your classroom is your responsibility and if you don’t take the time to think about your teaching it will probably never improve.
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Using Direct Instruction as a teaching strategy
Teaching = process of guiding learners as they work with information.
- Four key aspects of instruction that promote academic achievement:
- Creating an environment that fosters learning
- Helping students become autonomous learners
- Reflecting critically
- (Davis, 1993)
Important features of Direction Instructionorganising and explaining material in ways that are appropriate to students’ abilities
The terms direct instruction or explicit instruction usually refer to whole-class expository teaching techniques. Simple forms of direct instruction include lectures and demonstrations. They are teacher-centred approaches in which the teacher delivers academic content in a highly structured format that direct the activities of learners and maintain a focus on academic achievement.
When used effectively, direct instruction has the following important features:
- The learning outcomes and success criteria are made clear to students
- The teacher controls the time for various instructional activities
- The teacher organises and controls the sequencing of lesson activities
- There is an emphasis on academic achievement
- The teacher carefully monitors students’ activities and learning
- The teacher provides frequent clear feedback to students.
Are criticised as when they are implemented poorly they can be very boring, however when implemented well, direct instruction remains one of the most effective ways of promoting student learnings.Some teachers use direct instruction because it gives them maximum control over what, when and how students learn – which is intuitively attractive to many teachers. Others use it because it has strong research support.
Sometimes it is the most appropriate strategy to use, such as when students are being introduced to a new area of study it is useful to develop their basic knowledge and skills through direct instruction before giving them a more active role in knowledge-seeking through strategies such as problem solving or experimentation. Sometimes it is better for teachers to explain and demonstrate things directly rather than leaving learners to discover knowledge for themselves. This does not mean that direct instruction excludes the use of constructivist approaches to teaching . It emphasises that students need careful guidance in order to construct meaning from their learning experiences.
Direct instruction is a tool that should be used when it is the best approach given a situation and must be used thoughtful and skilfully if it is to help students learn.
In direct instruction, the emphasis is on the ‘teaching in small steps, providing for student practice after teach step, guiding students during initial practice and providing all students with a high level of successful practice’ (Rosenshine, 1987:34). Each of these steps requires considerable skill.
Some advantages of direct instruction
In a comprehensive review of research linking teacher behaviour to student achievement, Brophy and Good (1986) emphasise the following points:
- In general, academic learning is influenced by the amount of time that students spend engaged in appropriate academic activities
- Learning is easier for students when their teachers carefully structure new information
- Teachers should help students to relate new information to what they already know
- Teachers should monitor learner performance and provide corrective feedback.
The most effective guidance that teachers can provide is ‘guidance specifically designed to support the cognitive processing necessary for learning’. (Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (2006:76)Direct instruction can be used to help students achieve many types of learning outcomes particularly those that are based on knowledge, attitudes and values. Direct instruction can also be used to demonstrate skills to students, but skill development requires practice by the learners.
Some advantages:
- Efficient way to introduce students to a new area of study – gives broad overview with key concepts and shows how they are interrelated. Thus gives students the foundational knowledge for later learning. Particularly useful if important information is not otherwise readily available to students
- Very effective way of teaching factual information that is highly structured
- Reduces the cognitive load on students’ working memory (compared with discovery approaches)
- You can convey a personal interest in the subject (through an enthusiastic presentation) which can stimulate interest and enthusiasm of the students.
- Allows you to provide a role model of a scholar in a particular field. Can show how problems can be approached, how information can be analysed or how knowledge in your specialist field is generated and structured.
- Highlight important points or possible difficulties for students so their exposure to these things is not left to chance.
- Equally effective with large and small classes and with students from most cultures
- One of the most effective approaches for teaching explicit concepts and skills to low-achieving students
- Lectures can be a useful way to provide information for students who are poor readers or who are not very skilled at locating, organising and interpreting information
- Effective way of demonstrating to students that there are alternative perspectives on issues
- Can provide opportunities to challenge students to consider apparent disjunctions between theory (what they predict should happen) and observation (what they actually see). First step towards helping students to overcome misconceptions or misunderstandings.
- Demonstrations allow students to concentrate on the results of some event, rather than the technicalities of achieving the result. Important when students lack the confidence or skills to perform the task well.
- Lends itself well to teacher reflection so you can evaluate your presentations and refine them.
- Many students learn more deeply from strongly guided learning than from discovery.
- Generally, direct instruction allows you to create a non-threatening (reasonably stress-free) learning environment for students. Those who are shy, not confident or not knowledgeable are not forced to participate and become embarrassed.
Some limitations of direct instructionDirect instruction is not always the most effective way to help students to learn:
What does research tell us about direct instruction?
Some key aspects of effective direct instruction
There are several aspects of direct instruction that consistently receive research support as important contributors to student learning.
Teacher Clarity
A clear teacher is one who presents information in ways that make it easy for students to understand. Two distinct approaches. First approach describes clarity in terms of things that teachers do to bring about learner understanding. Often referred to as cognitive clarity. To be cognitively clear, you need to:
- Tell students what you want them to learn or be able to do
- Present the lesson content in a logical sequence
- Present the lesson content at a suitable pace
- Give explanations that make sense to students
- Emphasise important points
- Use appropriate examples to support your explanations
- Ask questions to check students’ understanding
- Re-explain things if students get confused
- Explain the meanings of new words
- Give students time to think about new information
- Answer students’ questions satisfactorily
- Give an adequate summary of the main points of the lesson.
The second research approach describes clarity in terms of things that teachers say and how they say them – verbal clarity or vagueness. Clear and unambiguous speech (verbal clarity) is an essential part of the teacher behaviours referred to as ‘cognitive clarity’. If you are to give students a clear explanation of something you need to use language and speech patterns that will not confuse them – particularly important when the language of instruction is not the students’ first language.If you want to teach clearly, it is important to do the following:
- Plan your instruction well in advance
- Make sure that you have a deep understanding of whatever you want the students to understand
- Prepare a written plan for every lesson
- Make sure that students understand what outcomes they are supposed to be achieving and what criteria you will use to assess their learning
- Write carefully worded key questions in your lesson plans and use them to guide students’ thinking
- Make sure that you have clear definitions and 4explanations for all key concepts in your lesson plan
- Include appropriate examples in your lesson plans
- Be conscious of your vocabulary – define all new jargon and don’t use vague expressions
- Make deliberate connections between lessons and between key points within each lesson
- Reflect on every lesson.
For teachers to improve clarity – identify the practices that are making them unclear and change them. Get feedback from students to assist this.Instruction Variety
The main reason for deliberately varying your approaches to teaching is that not all students learn the same thing in the same way (Spady, 1994). Second reason is that we all get bored if we are doing the same thing for too long, particularly if we are inactive. Therefore vary the following aspects of direct instruction:
- The way you commence your lessons (ie stating the outcomes, asking a question, posing a problem, showing an object to arouse curiosity).
- The way you check students’ prior knowledge (ie pre-tests, brainstorming, surveys)
- The way you give students access to information (ie lecture, handout, PowerPoint presentation, Internet, stories, television).
- The way you emphasise main ideas
- The way you ask questions and the type of questions you ask
- The types of feedback and reinforcement that you give learners
- The type of examples you use to illustrate points
- The type of thinking you expect form students
- The challenges that you present to students
- The activities in which learners are engaged (eg listening, reading, writing, speaking)
- The types of instructional materials you use.
Each student will have different expectations about what will or should happen in your classes. You will also have certain expectations about how students should respond to the way you teach. It is likely that your preferred teaching style mirrors your own preferred learning style. If some students are constantly required to work outside their preferred learning style they will quickly lose motivation. You need to be aware of this and try to find ways of aligning your expectations with those of the students – ie using a variety of teaching techniques.If you use appropriate variety in your teaching, this can expand students’ view of what they are learning and how they can learn, challenging them to think in new ways.
Task Orientation
Both the teacher and the learners should have a clear focus on the outcomes that students are trying to achieve. Students’ task should be to achieve these outcomes to a high standard in a reasonable amount of time. Teacher’s task is to assist learners to systematically work towards achieving the outcomes. For direct instruction, there must be a well-organised and structured learning environment in which the teacher is concerned with:
- Helping students to achieve specific learning outcomes to clearly stated standards
- Providing students with the opportunity to learn by presenting relevant information
- Asking questions to prompt student thinking and check their understanding
- Encouraging students to think independently
- Reminding students of what they are trying to achieve
- Encouraging and rewarding students’ efforts
Successful task orientation starts with effective classroom management – learning environment must be organised and managed so it is easy for all students to focus on learning. Ensure that interactions between you and the students are focused on intellectual content and achievement of predefined goals – not simply control. Easier to monitor the activities of students and encourage them to be constructively occupied and working towards planned outcomes when basic organisational structure is established. Task orientation is a key feature of direct instruction because it places an emphasis on clear goal setting, active teaching, close monitoring of student process and teacher responsibility for student learning – all important for student achievement. Task orientation is essential for the engagement, student self-regulation, higher-order thinking and deep understanding element s of Quality Teaching.Engagement in Learning
To be engaged, students must be actively thinking about, working with, or using the ideas and information that the teacher has presented – they must be trying to understand. Academic learning is influenced by the amount of time students spend engaged in appropriate academic tasks. Engagement and concentration and persistence have a strong influence on student learning.
One way to maximise student engagement is to have a system of class rules that allows students to attend to personal and procedural matters without the need to seek the teacher’s permission, thus encouraging students to remain engaged in learning for the maximum possible time. It is important to monitor the seatwork of students who are working independently, and to communicate to then that you are aware of their progress.
Your basic task is to engage students in learning activities that challenge them to construct understanding. This can be achieved through problem solving, through encouraging students to make choices and take the initiative in their learning, by challenging students to search for underlying causes, explain their thinking and justify a position band by making all learning relevant.
Simple basic rule: if you want students to engage in learning, you must tell them what you expect them to do and you must make it easy and interesting for them to do it.
When students know what the goals are, and when they see these goals as attainable and useful, they will want to engage in learning. If the students do not know what they are supposed to be learning, or why it is important, or they see the goals as unattainable or unimportant, you cannot expect them to be enthusiastic or engaged.
Learner Success
When students engage in learning tasks, they may experience high success (understand the content and make only occasional careless errors), moderate success (partially understand the content and make some substantive errors) or low success (not understand the task at all). Several studies have shown that instructional techniques that allow students to experience moderate-to-high success rates in class activities produce greater levels of student achievement in later tests than instruction that results in low student success rates on class activities.
When students believe that they can learn (because of earlier learning successes) it allows teachers to challenge them with higher-level tasks – one of the key indicators of effective teaching.
Moderate-to-high success rates on learning tasks provide opportunities for students to apply their learned knowledge in other classroom activities such as answering questions and problem solving. Thus success encourages further engagement in learning. It is difficult for students to be successful if the criteria for success are not explicit.
If students understand why they were successful in learning, they will be more likely to be successful in the future, even if they choose to use a different approach to learning.
Behaviours that support the key aspects of effective teaching
The above summary suggests that to be an effective teacher you need the knowledge and skill to present information clearly, using a variety of strategies that encourage learners to remain task-oriented and to engage the students in learning processes in which they can experience reasonably high levels of success. Thus effective teaching is the result of patterns of teacher behaviours rather than isolated behaviours and that the aspects of effective teaching briefly described above do not provide a total picture of teacher effectiveness.
Using students’ ideas
One of the best ways to maintain students’ interest is to involve them actively in the lesson and you can do this during direct instruction by using the students’ ideas as an integral part of your lesson. Students’ ideas can be used in five basic ways:
- Acknowledging (repeating students’ main statements)
- Modifying (rephrasing a student’s idea in the teacher’s words)
- Applying (using the student’s idea to take the next step in solving a problem)
- Comparing (showing similarities and differences in the ideas of several students)
- Summarising (using what was said by students to revise key points)
The most important reason for using students’ ideas is that it enables you to build explicitly on the students’ prior knowledge. The process of soliciting ideas form students can give you insight into the attitudes, understandings and misconceptions that they bring to the learning episode – vital information that you need to help them learn.Structuring
Good lesson structuring starts with a well-planned introduction – something that will grab the learners’ attention and spark their curiosity. Four of the common ways of doing this are:
- Start the lesson with a question (prompts learners to think about a particular issue)
- Provide a brief overview of where the lesson will take learners (to hlpe them develop a framework for the lesson)
- Use an advance organiser( to create a general context into which more specific information can be integrated).
- Simply tell the learners what outcomes they will be achieving in the lesson (so that they have clear goals for their learning)
The most effective introductions show the learners where the lesson will take them and how they will get there. Sometimes called ‘pre-instructional strategies’, chief purpose is to get the students interested in the lesson and to help them focus on the main points of the lesson.Once the learners know where the lesson will take them, show them how they will get there. Younger children – tell them. Older children – flow chart or points list. Can refer to it to show progression and see how main points are related.
At appropriate points in the lesson you should summarise important information.
The structure of your lesson must make sense to your students. You will make learning easier for your students if you highlight main points, proceed in small steps at an appropriate pace and give opportunities to check students understand what you are talking about.
Six instructional activities that Rosenshine and Stevens (1986) claim to be essential to well-structured teaching:
- Regular reviews of past learning
- Well-organised presentation of each lesson
- Guided practice for students on new tasks
- Feedback to students on their learning
- Independent practice for students once basics have been mastered and
- systematic weekly review of course content.
All of these teacher activities place clear focus on what we want students to learn – and that is one of the basic principles of outcomes-based education.Without appropriate structuring, effective teaching is difficult because it is hard for the teacher to remain task-oriented and because students are unlikely to be appropriately engaged in learning. Careful structuring of each lesson is essential if you want students to engage in higher-order thinking and if you want to deliberately guide them to deep levels of understanding
Questioning
Questioning is still regarded as an important part of teaching because (a) it stimulates student thinking and learning and (b) it provides the teacher with valuable information about student learning.
Teachers could use questions for the following purposes, all of which are relevant to direct instruction:
- to develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved
- To evaluate students’ preparation and check on homework or seatwork.
- To develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes
- To review and summarise previous lessons
- To nurture insights by exposing new relationships
- To assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives
- To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own.
Questioning forms an integral part of most strategies for effective teaching. It is an important component of teacher clarity because it is a means by which teachers can gain feedback on learner understanding. Also keeps students on task and encourages engagement in meaningful learning. Can introduce variety into lessons and is a means of enabling even slow learners to experience some success in their learning. Questioning has little effect on student learning unless it requires students to use ideas rather than just remember them.With regards to Bloom’s taxonomy and questions stimulating learners to think at the higher levels, Cotton (1988) cautions that:
Your questions must always be pitched at a level that is appropriate for the students and the content.
Probing
Probing is generally regarded as one aspect of questioning. It is the process of seeking clarification or more information when a learner attempts to answer a question. The main reason for probing is to enable you to get a clearer picture of students’ understanding because this may not be obvious form their answers to your initial question. You do not have to restrict your probing to the learner who first answered your question. Sometimes it is useful to seek clarification or elaboration from another learner – called ‘redirection’.
There is some doubt about the extent to which proving helps students to learn. Has the greatest effect on student achievement when it is part of a cycle of attempting to clarify an answer, asking for additional information and redirecting the question to another student. Success is ikely to be greatest when the purpose of the proving is to lead the discussion to higher levels of complexity. Thus proving can be seen as an important catalyst for the effective teaching behaviours of task orientation, student engagement in learning and clarity.
Probing and redirection will be most effective when the students can see why the teacher is using these techniques. Ie teacher seeking more specific information.
Despite the possible benefits of proving, some caution is necessary. It is not appropriate for probing to be ‘guess what’s in the teacher’s head’. Nor if proving leads to students becoming embarrassed because they cannot answer the question.
Enthusiasm
An enthusiastic teacher conveys to students a feeling of involvement, excitement and interest through facial expression, gestures, body movements, eye movements and vocal characteristics.
While it seems logical that enthusiastic teachers will motivate their learners more than unenthusiastic teachers, it is difficult to obtain research evidence that teacher enthusiasm makes any direct difference to learner achievement as it is difficult to measure.
Enthusiastic teachers are usually seen by students as better communicators and they are more successful at engaging students in learning.
Summary
There is considerable research support for using student ideas, structuring, questioning and probing as important support mechanisms for the teacher behaviours that are more direct indicators of teacher effectiveness. These support behaviours are likely to be particularly helpful when used by an enthusiastic and well-organised teacher.
Planning and implementing direct instruction
Students are not left to explore ideas on their own in order ot learn something – they are guided by the teacher to learn something specific. As a consequence, direct instruction lessons require very careful planning and preparation.
Writing lesson outcomes
All planning should start with a clear statement about the outcomes that you want students to achieve, and for each lesson these outcomes should be derived directly from the longer-term syllabus outcomes. Always think of the outcomes in terms of what students will be able to do as a result of your direct instruction.
Be realistic about the lesson outcomes. There is a finite limit to what students can learn in each lesson so the outcomes should be specific enough to be attainable in that lesson. You have to help the students see how the outcomes of each lesson are linked.
Selecting lesson content
Think of the content of the lesson as a vehicle to help students achieve the lesson outcomes. The content must be directly related to the outcomes and be at an appropriate cognitive level. Use examples that will make it easy for students to understand the concepts and principles you present to them. Take time to explain the purpose of each example before, or immediately after, you give it. Think carefully about your examples when planning your lessons.
Organising the lesson content
One of the main reasons for using direct instruction is that it allows you to organise the lesson content and present it to students in a manner and sequence that will make it easy for them to understand. Therefore, a lot of your planning will involve structuring, organising and sequencing the content so that students are systematically exposed to new ideas and encouraged to think about them in particular ways.
Students assimilate material more easily when they can see a clear structure and logical sequence in it.
General principles of organising lesson content:
- Make sure students understand the purpose of each lesson and its general scope.
- Try to start by explaining ideas that are relatively easy to understand and progress to the more difficult ideas
- Help the students to make connections between what they already know and what you want them to learn, and between the various parts of the new information that you present.
- Break the material into meaningful chunks – sections that are small enough to be assimilated easily and then pulled together to make a cohesive whole.
- Emphasise the things that are important and help students to see the logical connections between these important ideas.
- Use analogies and examples to help the students understand
- Give students time to think about what they are learning and encourage them to ask questions
- Provide summaries at appropriate points in your lesson.
- Whenever possible, use visual means to support your presentation eg picture, cart, diagram or model.
- Organise your material in a way that will make sense to your students. Take time to explain to students why you have sequenced the material in a particular way.
- Organise your lesson so that it challenges students to think beyond their current level of understanding.
Organise the lesson content in a way that makes it easy to remember. This is a learning theory called schema theory – a schema being an organisational framework for information. Schemata (plural of schema) are the complex knowledge structures that learners develop through experience, which, in turn, become the basis for a student’s prior knowledge in new learning situations.In schema theory, the knowledge that students build is meaning-driven; it is not simple the accumulation of isolated pieces of information.
Because schemata are important for interpreting and decoding information, it is critical to present students with information in ways that make It easy for them to develop and use schemata. Direct instruction can be a very effective technique for helping students to develop schemata and to activate these reference frameworks as the basis for developing new understanding.
Preparing lesson notes
Basic formats:
Verbatim Notes
This is a word-by-word script of the content you want to present. It reassures you that you have thought about everything you need to say and how you will say it. Reduces the number of things you need to think about during the lesson presentation and may help overcome nervousness. Problems:
- If you simple read notes, presentation appears very formal and uninspiring
- You may not use appropriate intonations, pauses etc making presentation sound false
- Sentences that read very well do not necessarily sound natural esp those that are long and complex
- Easy to lose your place which can make you more nervous
- Discourages students from asking questions or making comments
- Gives students the impression that you lack confidence and knowledge
- Gives students the impression all they need to do is listen and not think.
Outlines NotesVery useful to prepare a summary of the information on which you will base your presentation, expressed in point form rather than complete sentences. The main advantage of this form of notes is that it forces you to construct sentences on the run so your presentation becomes less formal and appears to be based more soundly on your own knowledge and experience. It also helps to ensure that your delivery (voice) matches your message. You also have more freedom to move about the classroom.
Disadvantages:
Helping students to master the language of your subject
Each subject or discipline has its own special language to describe the concepts and relationships that are unique to that area of study. You mast help the learners to mast the language of your subject at the same time as they strive to understand its content.
A simple first step is to explain to students that they will be learning some new words during the lesson, and tell them why it is necessary to understand and use these words. Write new terminology on the board so students see the correct spelling. – particularly important for ESL students.
Don’t expect students to understand words just because you use tem frequently or because students use the words, they know what they mean.
You will help students to understand your subject if you take the time to explain why technical terms are necessary, and why particular words are used to describe the concepts you are presenting. Often it will help to tell students the derivation of the term.
Four traps to avoid when you are attempting to explain new terminology to students:
- Confusing students by using definition that contains more words they don’t understand
- Using the same words in the definition as the concept you are trying to define
- Providing a non-definition – a long explanation that never really defines the term
- Using words that have an everyday meaning and a meaning specific to the subject, without explaining the special meaning.
Helping students to take notesStudents need some record of what they were learning so they can revise it, follow up on ideas in their own time and prepare for future lessons. Merely copying notes from the board does not necessarily help students to learn.
Don’t assume that your students will have appropriate note taking skills. Make it easy by emphasising main points, making the structure of your lesson clear and by giving them time to record notes.
Checking learner understanding
It is extremely important that you know whether or not students are learning. Can be done informally from the looks on their faces, the questions they ask and the answers they give to your questions. Can also be done by giving a short test during or after the lesson. Explain that the tests are designed to help them learn, not just test what they have learned.
Bringing it all together
Basic Structure
An introduction/overview in which you:
- Help students to review what they have already learned to prepare them for the current lesson.
- Tell students what they will learn in the current lesson and why the will be learning it
- Tell students how their learning will be applied and assessed.
A presentation/learning phase in which you:- Give students clear explanations of the things you want them to learn
- Provide opportunities for students to think about and apply the things they are learning
- Give students opportunities for guided practice
- Monitor students’ learning and gain feedback on their understanding
- Encourage students to self-evaluate their learning and ask questions to improve their understanding
- Provide feedback and encouragement to students
A structured conclusion in which you:- Make a formative evaluation of what students learned in the lesson
- Briefly explain what will happen in the next stage of students’ learning
- Give students learning tasks to be completed before the next lesson.
Keep the following points in mind:Determining whether your direct instruction was effective
Gather as much evidence as possible in order to decide whether you should be satisfied with the results of your instruction and to decide what changes you will make next time you teach that class or use that teaching strategy.
When you use direct instruction as your main teaching strategy, you should ask questions such as the following:
Thinking about what you did:
- Did I tell the students what I expected them to learn and how they would be able to use their new knowledge?
- Did I tell students the criteria I would use to judge the quality of their learning?
- What did I do to help the students relate their new knowledge to things that they already understood?
- Did I do everything in this lesson that I had planned to do? If not, why not?
- Did anything (positive or negative) happen in this lesson that I had not expected?
- Did I use any terminology that the students did not understand? How can I be sure that they understood all the words I assumed they understood?
- How much time did I spend talking and how much time did students spend thinking?
- Did my organisation and sequencing of the content work effectively to help students learn?
- What opportunities did I give the students to ask questions?
- How often did I check to see that the students understood the lesson content?
- Was I confident and enthusiastic in my presentation?
- What did I do to help students see the relevance of the lesson?
- What happened in this lesson to confirm or contradict my beliefs about teaching and learning?
- What things would I change if I had to teach this lesson again tomorrow?
Thinking about the students:- What evidence do I have that the students achieved the outcomes?
- Did all students achieve these outcomes, or only some students? Why?
- Did the students react to the lesson in the way that I anticipated that they would?
- Did the lesson contain an appropriate amount of information and was that information organised in a sequence that seemed logical to the students?
- Were the students engaging with important ideas and trying to develop deep understanding?
- What evidence do I have that the students enjoyed this lesson?
- At the end of the lesson, were students curious and enthusiastic about learning more?
- In what ways did this lesson influence the beliefs and values of my students? How can I justify this outcome?
- Was direct instruction the best choice for this lesson, or would students have learned more if I had used a different strategy?
Whatever happens in your classroom is your responsibility and if you don’t take the time to think about your teaching it will probably never improve..